Supernatural: Life in the Balance
by xFaithyx
Summary: This is set in the Season 3 time line. Might be considered AU I guess. Dean has made the deal with the Crossroads Demon. He and Sam have split up for now. Sam is off trying to find something to save Dean. Dean calls an "Old Friend".


Supernatural: Life in the Balance

Dean sat on the bed in the motel room staring mindlessly at the TV. He flicked through the channels not really seeing what was there. His mind was on something else entirely. It had been three weeks since he and Sam had separated. Almost two months now since Dean had made his deal with the crossroads demon to bring Sam back. Now look at him. Sam was off trying to find a way to save him and he was sitting her alone. For this last couple of weeks Dean had tried to just live his life. Do what he wanted to do. Not think about anything to deep or meaningful. His plan was to get as much out of the time he had left. He'd found quite a few girls in that time and even more bars. Yet here he sat once again, alone in his room.

For some reason he couldn't stop himself from thinking. He kept contemplating things in his life. What he had done, things he hadn't done. Bits and pieces of his life rolled through his mind. He couldn't get away from it and to be honest, he didn't want to. When it came right down to it he wanted his life to mean something. Something more than just a legacy that was thrust upon him, not unwillingly exactly but without the full knowledge of what it meant. He had been too young to know. He had just wanted to please his father. Take care of Sam. He fell into it easy enough. But now? What did that leave him with? A whole lot of nothing is what. Not even Sam was around now. Sure there were lives they had saved. A lot of evil things had been sent back to where they belonged because of him and Sammy. But the evil it just kept coming. It never stopped. Dean had less than a year left on this earth and he wondered, what was the point of it all anyway? He was going to die and the evil was going to still keep right on doing it's thing. Who was going to hunt it then? Sam? Alone? Was it really going to matter anyway? Did they even put a dent in it or was it just all an insignificant effort, a monumental waste of precious time? The questions he pushed away before were all coming back to him. He understood now why Sam had wanted to escape. Get away from it. Do something _'normal'_ with his life.

There were a lot of things he thought about. One thing kept coming back and he didn't know why. At first it seemed insignificant. But, it kept cropping up in his head. She was just a girl. Why her? For the past couple days it had been all he thought about. He'd even gone through the trouble of finding her phone number and that wasn't an easy task. Enduring the angry wrath of someone he hadn't wanted to ruffle the feathers of. But he did it anyway and got the number. That was yesterday. He hadn't called it yet. Wasn't sure he was even going too really. Didn't know what he would say if he did.

So he sat. Mulling things over in his mind again and again while he mindlessly stared at the television set. He tried to think of something else. Wondered what Sam was off doing right now. How he was doing. Was he getting himself into trouble? He had heard from him in a few days now. Sam hadn't called and all the calls he had made to Sam went straight to his voicemail and not been returned. Maybe he should try to track him down. Yeah, he could do that. Right after he made that phone call he thought. There it was again. It wouldn't leave him alone. He sighed heavily and picked up his phone from the side table. He opened it and found the number just looking at it for awhile. Suddenly he realized that he wasn't going to be able to do anything until he got past this. Highlighting the number he pressed the enter key and took a deep breath as the number dialed. He put the phone to his ear and waited.

In another motel room in another place the cell phone on the table started ringing. Having just stepped out of the shower she was still wrapped up in towels she rushed to the table and picked up the phone. Not bothering to look at the caller ID. Not that it would have mattered really as it came across as unlisted. But the fact that it was unlisted may have made her think twice about answering. Maybe just letting it click over to voicemail. It was too late for that now, phone was in hand and the button pushed. She brought the phone up to the side of her face and answered.

"Hello." It was quiet for a few seconds so she said it again.

"Hello?"

Then she heard a voice that she hadn't heard in quite some time. A voice she had pretty much pushed to the back of her mind and never really expected to hear again. She pulled the phone away from her face and looked at the screen as the voice on the other end said,

"Hey Jo."

The screen didn't tell her anything, just unlisted. Her eyes narrowed a bit and she clamped down on her jaw as she gritted her teeth. She had to resist the urge to just hang up the phone. Resist taking the phone and throwing it across the room. That would accomplish nothing, she knew. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and tried to calm herself.

"What do you want?" She managed to get out through her tightly clenched teeth.

"Nice way to greet an old friend Jo." Dean's voice said.

Jo let out the breath she didn't know she was holding in a huff.

"Really? Just exactly how am I supposed to greet someone I haven't heard from in forever? Someone that couldn't even bother to call to tell me whether or not things turned out okay after his brother was possessed by a demon and almost killed both of us. Yeah, exactly how am I supposed to respond to that?"

Jo's voice was angry. Bitter. She had worried for weeks about that before she finally found out what had happened and that both Sam and Dean were all right.

"I'm sorry Jo. I should have called or at least gotten word to you that things were okay. You have a right to be mad at me." Dean said as sincerely as possible.

He _was_ sorry and she didn't know that he had been agonizing over this for days now trying to think of the right thing to say to her. Not that it really would make a difference to her. Whatever he was going to say wasn't going to be right. He knew that.

"Like I said Dean, what do you want?" Jo said in a quiet even tone. She had to work on not going off and just yelling at him over the phone.

Dean sighed. "Uh. Well, this might sound funny but, have you heard from Sam at all?"

Jo was caught off guard by that one. Had _she _heard from Sam? Why would she hear from Sam? Now she was curious and wondering what the hell was going on.

"No, I haven't heard from him. Should I have? Did something happen to him? He's not like… possessed again is he?"

Was that why he called her? Sam possessed, maybe he was coming after her again and this was a warning call.

"No, no, no… Nothing like that Jo. At least I don't think so. See the thing is, I haven't heard from him in awhile and I was getting a little worried. He's not returning my phone calls."

Dean was trying to think quickly. A plan was formulating in his mind. It may have been a crazy plan but it just felt like what he needed. What he wanted to do. He didn't know if it was going to work but he was going to try.

"So, you think Sam's in trouble then?" Jo asked.

A little bit of worry creeping into her voice. If Dean was worried then it was something worth worrying about. Jo liked Sam. He was a decent guy. Even after the incident with the demon Meg possessing him. She knew that it wasn't him that had tried to hurt her.

"Oh hey, you know nothing to worry about probably. Jo, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you with this. It's no big deal. You know, I'll just track him down myself. I'm sure he's fine."

Dean was taking the chance that she would take the bait. Not sure if she would at this point. He was actually surprised she hadn't just hung up on him in the beginning. So, maybe she would…

"Dean, don't give me that crap. Do you think something happened to him? Of course you do. You wouldn't be calling me unless you were desperate. Something is going on and you're not telling me. Something with Sam and he could be in trouble. Where are you?"

Jo's mind and changed gears. All her anger at Dean was gone now. Well, not really but for now she pushed it aside. The concern for Sam was more important now. If Dean was calling her he must have exhausted all his other avenues and he must really need help. The wheels in her brain were turning.

Dean smiled now to himself. Maybe it would work. It seemed to be getting her mind of being pissed at him and thinking about Sam.

"Well, I'm in Savannah, Georgia. Some place called the Relax Inn. But Jo… Really, don't worry about it. I'm sure it's nothing. He'll show up with bells on probably tomorrow or the next day for sure."

Jo was already trying to calculate driving time in her head. She wasn't that far really and she wasn't working on a case at the moment anyway. If Sam needed help she wasn't going to stand around and do nothing. Not even if Dean was going to be too stubborn to ask for her help.

"What room are you in? I'm coming down. If I drive straight through tonight I'll be there by tomorrow afternoon. Don't even argue with me Dean. I'm already on my way. Just give me the room number please."

In fact she was already running around the room, picking up things and throwing them into her duffle bag. Pulling out clean clothes to wear as she realized she was still wrapped up in the towels from the shower.

Dean made a show of sighing before he answered. "It's room 137. You don't have to do this you know Jo. I can handle it."

But the smile was back on his face and he was quite proud of himself. If the very least he got out of this was to be able to talk to her face to face then it was worth it. For some reason this thing with Jo was something he had to make right. Now was the time. Even if it was to just tell her he was sorry in person. That would be something good. A positive he could look back on maybe. Owning up to what he had done was wrong and had hurt her. Something he just couldn't do over the phone. And… Technically, it was true. He hadn't heard from Sam for a bit. He just didn't elaborate on why.

"I told you… I'm already on my way. I'm out the door and in the truck. Don't go anywhere. You better be there when I get there. Tomorrow, early afternoon at the latest."

Not giving him a chance to argue further she clicked off the phone and sat it back down on the table. She shook her head. What did she just get herself into she wondered? It didn't matter now. She was going and that was that. Decision made. She pulled on her jeans and a t-shirt. Then continued picking up her stuff from around the room and packing up her bag. Finally she was pretty sure she had everything. She put her still wet hair back into a ponytail and sat down on the edge of the bed. Tugging on a pair of socks then stuff her feet into her boots. She was ready to go. Leaving the room key on the table she took one last look around the room. Then she headed out the door letting it shut behind her. She yanked the door of the truck open and tossed the duffel bag onto the passenger seat. Slammed the truck door shut and started the engine. Pulling out of the motel driveway she shook her head as she now had several long hours of driving ahead of her with nothing to do put ponder, just why the hell Dean Winchester really called her after all this time.


End file.
